‘Flawed’ ruling on heritage site puts wind farm back up in air

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The judge’s ruling on wind turbines places more emphasis on historic settingsDanny Lawson/PA

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Lyveden New Bield, the unfinished 17th-century country house that the National Trust says is of “international importance”Murray Sanders / Associated News

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West Coast Energy proposed to build the turbines on farmland owned by the Duke of GloucesterGetty Images

Oliver Moody

Last updated at 12:01AM, March 9 2013

Plans to build a wind farm near one of the country’s most unusual 17th-century
ruins have been stymied in the High Court after a seminal legal challenge
from conservationists.

The case has been hailed as an “important marker” for campaigners opposing
onshore wind farms in landscapes with historic houses and monuments,
including a proposed site between Hardwick Hall and Bolsover Castle in
Derbyshire.

The blueprints showed four 300ft-tall wind turbines on a hill overlooking an
area of National Trust property in east Northamptonshire around Lyveden New
Bield, an unfinished country house that the trust says is of “international
importance”.

Court of Appeal
Published: March 3, 2015
In re M and Others (Children) (Abduction: Child’s Objections)
Before Lord Justice Richards, Lady Justice Black and Lord Justice Ryder
Judgment: January 27, 2015
When a court was determining whether, for the purposes of article 13 of the
Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction 1980,
a child who objected to being returned to his country of habitual residence
had attained the age and degree of maturity at which it was appropriate to
take account of his views, the exercise required was a straightforward
examination of whether the terms of the Convention had been satisfied
without the use of any technical subsidiary tests